Thanks to Anna With Hachette Audiobooks, I have three copies of this audio to give away! I am so excited to get into this one soon!
Each story in this jubilantly acclaimed collection pays testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances.
“Each one of these stories left me really gasping and profoundly moved.” – Oprah Winfrey
1) Leave a comment here of a title of an Oprah Book Club Book you have read. If you have not read one, what one peaks your interest. Here is a list to look at of Oprah’s Book Club Picks (you must answer the question to be entered in this giveaway!)
Bonus Entries!!!
2) Subscribe to my email to this blog (upper right sidebar) and receive 2 additional entries! Let me know you did here on a separate comment – entries that say they are subscribed and are not will be deleted.
If you are already a subscriber let me know in a separate comment and you will receive 3 extra entries!
3) Blog or tweet about this giveaway and let me know by leaving the blog link or tweet link here on a separate comment and you will receive an additional entry.
4. Follow this blog and let me know on a separate comment and you have an additional entry as well!
That’s is! You can do the first entry alone or as many bonus as you choose. Giveaway is open to USA and Canada only. Winners will receive the audios from Hachette
Thanks to Anna With Hachette Audiobooks, I have three copies of this audio to give away! I am currently listening to this in my home and it is being read by the author, Alice Sebold.
It is a story of unspeakable tragedy and loss, but also of abiding love and even joy. With its astonishing force, THE LOVELY BONES has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world.
Available in CD and Digital Download formats.
Listen to an excerpt.
Watch the movie trailer.
Visit the official movie website at LovelyBones.com.
How to enter?
1) Leave a comment here of where or when you are most likely to listen to an audio book (you must answer the question to be entered in this giveaway!)
Bonus Entries!!!
2) Subscribe my email to this blog (upper right sidebar) and receive 2 additional entries! Let me know you did here on a separate comment – entries that say they are subscribed and are not will be deleted.
If you are already a subscriber let me know in a separate comment and you will receive 3 extra entries!
3) Blog or tweet about this giveaway and let me know by leaving the blog link or tweet link here on a separate comment and you will receive an additional entry.
4. Follow this blog and let me know on a separate comment and you have an additional entry as well! 🙂
That’s is! You can do the first entry alone or as many bonus as you choose. Giveaway is open to USA and Canada only. Winners will receive the audios from Hachette
I was up early (Coffee Cup too!) to start the traditional prepping of the bird. I always go all out for this day even though it is just the four of us, Al and I, and our two boys, Brad (21) and Justin (19). Since we have such a small family I think I over compensate with days like this. I have a 24 pound turkey. Don’t laugh….. ok, laugh. I make a big one so the boys have left overs to take home and eat all weekend long. What else is on the menu?
I have shrimp and cocktail sauce (something to snack on throughout the day!)
Mixed nuts and M & M’s mixed in… (another mindless snack item)
I am making broccoli cauliflower salad with grapes (so ym and I make it light w FF Mayo and Splenda)
Sweet Potatoes (are a must! And I have a new recipe this year that calls for FF Plain Yogurt blended in… sounds really good!)
Cheesy broccoli
warm whole grain dinner rolls and bread out of the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (review on this book yet today!)
Turkey stuffing (the boys love this!)
Carrots and vegie dip
I think that is everything. We have the new Star Wars movie to watch this afternoon and I have Trivial Pursuit for the Wii. Should be a good day. We dont really have any traditions… just hanging out together. Next month Brad goes into the Navy (on the 14th) so this is a bitter sweet holiday for us…. and my job of course is to hold myself together… ha ha.
I am so thankful for my family, my faith, my friends. I am thankful for our health. I am thankful for all the things that my eyes are open to in this world and the heart to want to do something about it. I am thankful for all of you, for the conversations and the friendships developed through talking books.
How about you? Any traditions today? Any fun foods or plans? I would love to hear what you do!
I have always enjoyed a bit of fantasy mixed into my own world…. I like to imagine the possibilities ~ Sheila
One day twelve-year-old Tirissa discovers that everyone in her village is under a spell. Everyone but her! Then she sees a mysterious stranger change into a huge bird, a bird with a beak like a sword. Did he cast the spell? Desperate to find someone who can break it, she flees, leaving her village behind. An old herb woman tells her to seek help from a wizard who lives far away, and her journey takes her across the Three Kingdoms. Along the way she’s joined by a kindly troll and a short, fat palace guard. They are pursued by the twin princes of Kellayne, the best hunters in the Blue River Kingdom, as well as by the huge, dangerous bird. Meanwhile, an evil wizard watches Tirissa and her friends in his magic mirror and plans a second spell that will kill everyone in the Three Kingdoms.
In My Opinion:
I have really taken a liking to YA fantasy reads over this past year. I honestly did not know what I was going to get with this book. The cover reminds me of an older style book… it doesn’t really follow the trends of today’s covers that snap you to attention and cause you to pick up a book… yet something about it, something in the description, made me want to read it.
As I dove into a new fantasy world of wizards and trolls… and something about a necklace…. I found myself enjoying the pace that Willow had set for her readers. There were parts that seemed to drag on a bit for me, but I can imagine reading this to a young girl and having her hang on the words as Tirissa makes her way around the Three Kingdoms.
Willow grew up in Albuquerque, NM, in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, always with her nose in an Oz book or else out under the peach tree in the back yard, looking for fairies. After she grew up, moved to CA, and graduated from Occidental College, a few aptitude tests suggested she should be a novelist, but she didn’t try her hand at it until her thirties. By then she’d forgotten her childhood love of fantasy and over the years tried her hand at a variety of genres. None of the stories really captured her imagination and each time her interest petered out. But the years passed and one day, in her fifties, she felt a yearning to read Lord of the Rings, which she had never read. Halfway through, she knew that all along it was children’s fantasy she wanted to write. And so she began writing the tale of Tirissa, who loved to be out under the trees, and it turned into Tirissa and the Necklace of Nulidor.
This review copy of this books was sent to my by Pump Up Your Book Promotions
I as I sat up form bed this morning and looked out my window I see the light covering of snow that has salted its way across our yard.
First word of the day, “Ugh.”
For a Minnesota girl you would think this would be my thing. It’s not. It’s cold. It’s wet. It’s sloppy. And it can really suck to drive in it too. The game plan is someday we are not here for this part of Minnesota. We hope to start leaving in November for warmer territory, and returning in mid March in time for warm up. We have friends in the area that do this and stay in Florida. We also have family in Florida….
Hmmmm…..
So is everyone getting the emails now for book sales at the big name stores? Just this morning I received these two:
Christianbooks.com : Has a huge selection of 80% off items. I checked it out. There are some great buys! A whole selection of items under $2.
Randy Alcorn’s Deception is $1.99 (if you have not read Alcorn you are missing out! Fantastic author!
Gift items too – cd’s for 99 cents…
Also Barnes and Noble has a 25% coupon off of one book if you use your Mastercard on your order.
Amazon is having Black Friday Deals Week going on now. I seen a few things of interest there as well!
So thats what I have to share this morning. I have a day in the office than off to the store to get all the things that I have procrastinated on for tomorrow. I am purchasing two copies of Hunger Games for my boys and I will be baking out of the book healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day for tomorrows review.
Have you discovered any great book sales?
Do you have any reading plans for the upcoming 4 day weekend?
As strong and as steady with her words as Kitness is with an arrow, Suzanne Collins once again has created a win. ~ Sheila
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.
In My Opinion:
Suzanne Collins does not disappoint with this sequel to Hunger Games. Coming in strong, starting where the first book ended, I felt like I had never left the story – I had never lowered that level of excitement…. of fear for what was next for Katniss and Peeta. When the unthinkable happens I cant think that there is any way out… how could there be?
I am really pleased how clean Suzanne Collins has kept both of these books. There is plenty of teenage “opportunity” for her to take the books a different direction and she doesn’t. I actually find that refreshing.
My one regret is that when I started Hunger Games, I did not know until I was into the book that it was actually one of three, Catching Fire being the middle book and the third not due out to fall of 2010. If I would have known that I probably would have waited (or at least tried!) so I could have read them all together. Now I have created a longing in me to know what happens next….MUST READS!
Murder and networking… Jess and Leah are characters you will want to know more about… ~ Sheila
Bright yellow cables against a blue shirt? Carl never would have approved of that color combination. Why was his face so white? His eyes should be closed, not open. Why hadn’t one of the security guards seen this and reported it to the police? The lights were off, the cameras were useless in the dark.
Of course, the cables wrapped around Carl’s neck explained why the server wasn’t working. Loss of carrier.
Jess Wirth lives a dreary life. He spends most of his time crammed inside a cubicle, toiling as a network engineer and stewing over the details of his ugly divorce. But when he finds his co-worker dead in the basement of their office, Jess’s life takes a surprising—and unpleasant—turn.
The police quickly declare the death a suicide, but Jess isn’t so sure. Not long after he begins digging into the victim’s work, another co-worker turns up dead, convincing him once and for all that something sinister is brewing behind the cubicle walls.
His investigation leads him to a mysterious woman name Leah, who pushes him to entrust her with the information he’s collected about his dead colleagues. Wary of Leah’s motives yet inexorably drawn to her, Jess keeps her at arm’s length…until an attempt is made on both their lives. Realizing they are close on the trail of a dangerous criminal, the pair race to expose a data theft ring before they become the killer’s next victims.
In My Opinion:
Loss of Carrier was a stretch for me. Not necessarily in a bad way. A technical style of book that actually fed that recent hunger I have had to read a suspense/ mystery. The book goes into great detail about the workings of technical things such as computers. It is explained well, but a bit TMI at times. I enjoyed the story line and where Russ White was taking me as the reader so I plugged on (no pun intended…). I appreciated how the book is not overly Christian with an overwhelming message, but instead author Russ White has woven together a story that reflects Christians in what feels to be a natural light.
Russ White writes tech as that is what he knows well. There are three more books planned for this series. This would be an author I would like to keep an eye on and see how this story develops as well as his writing.
Russ White is an internationally recognized inter network engineer. He has co-authored eight books in the field of network design and routing protocols and is a regular speaker at international networking conferences.
In addition to working on several expert and senior-level network engineering certifications, he is a certified firearms instructor.
Russ, his wife, and their two children live in the Raleigh area of North Carolina, where they enjoy spending time on Jordan Lake and attending Colonial Baptist Church. Loss of Carrier is his first novel.
I am in the dining area trying to fill the emptiness in my stomach with all the great foods placed before me. Soups and chicken in orange sauce, breads that melt in your mouth, desserts you cant say no to….
I look across the table at Peeta and then to my right where Katniss sits, both of them eating their fill. Peeta’s love for Katniss seems to reflect off of him. It is so transparent. Katniss I cant read. She is so closed off.
The ache in the pit of my stomach draws me back and I take in the entire room and feel the shiver go up my spine. I am back in The Hunger Games.
Coffee Cup and I have only moments before we need to get to the office. I was up late reading…. I put the finishing touches on a review I have coming up in a couple hours and I had to (had to!) continue on with Catching Fire. I am a total addict.
Today should be a pretty smooth day. Nothing really on the agenda other than the office, perhaps a little work out if my friend Heidi gives me a call and a roast in the crock pot so dinner is planned and in process. I havent decided yet if I am going to go pick up those last minute things I need for Thanksgiving yet today…. or hit that tomorrow. We will see how this afternoon goes.
Today I leave you with a recipe for Pumpkin Soup. I think this will be on our menu for Thursday:
Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 quart chicken broth
2 (29 ounce) cans pumpkin puree
1 pint half and half
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon orange zest
Directions
Melt butter. Add onion, garlic, cumin, thyme, salt & pepper & saute till onions are soft.Add broth, reduce heat to medium-low & simmer till onions are tender (10 – 12 minutes). Add pumpkin. Puree in pot with hand blender.Add half & half & sugar if desired.Garnish with sour cream and/or parsley, if desired.
If you follow this blog you are probably aware of my recent gushing review of Jantsen’s Gift by Pam Cope. The book left me at times with laughter, other times with tears. Once I finished the book, I decided to try to email Pam Cope to see if she would be willing to answer a few questions for an interview that she could email me back the answers and I could post here. Instead, she emailed me back and asked if she could call me and we could talk about the book on the phone.
Uhhh….. YEAH!
So we set up a day and time last week when she was going to give me a call and she did. We had a fantastic conversation and chatted like old friends for about an hour! I think she interviewed me as much as I did her! She kept asking about the work we have done in Honduras… and we even discussed my book club which by the picture on my sidebar here she had determined had to be quite the group! I agreed, they are! 🙂
So with no further babbling and gushing by me…. please enjoy the following conversation I had with author, Pam Cope.
Pam, I am so excited that you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to chat here with me. As you share in the book, this is about a total change of lifestyle for you. Share with me a bit what creating the book, Jantsen’s Gift was like.
Pam: Aimee was a great help with the book, she took so much of it having written other books before. I really learned a lot from her. On some of your travels Aimee and I were not together so we just kept journals of all that we were doing and seeing. At one point I had seven journals that I turned over to Aimee… unedited logs that she was able to pick through.
Has this book been everything you had hoped it would be?
Pam: It is hard being a first time author. You really work hard to get your name out there. I am so thankful tot he bloggers who have reviewed my book and talked about it. These promotions have been so helpful! It is fun to see the reviews coming through on sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It takes a lot of time, but this is what I do to get the word out.
What was the last trip you were on?
Pam: All of us went to Ghana, west Africa in August. This to us is family time. We have a family camp sort of setting. We go to see an orphanage we have partnered with there. This orphanage has 21 kids that have been taken off of the lake. I will be going in back in January and March of 2010.
Pam, that is so amazing. When I think about all those kids. Well, you and I have already talked about this… I tear up. It rips me up inside to think about those kids. In your book, I keep going back to when you describe the boy you had to leave behind on the lake. That one statement haunts me. I know he is one of many. What is that like Pam, saying yes to one, but leaving another?
Pam: It is so hard. You have to remind yourself that you can only save so many. You keep moving forward. You keep being positive and doing what you can. There are 7,000 kids on the lake right now.
How are the two children you did adopt, Van and Tatum?
Pam: They are wonderful. They have adjusted well. We have had Van since he was 16 months old and Tatum since she was 2 1/2. They are both in fifth grade right now. They are so much fun to be around.
If there another book in the planning?
Pam: We have talked about it. Right now it is just a vision but I feel there is another book. I am thinking it may be a book about people who are empowered to live out their dreams – like advocates for something, people who get to do what they really love to do. I think it would be short stories about these people. Something to the effect of what is that moment when we are launched into our passion… that dream that causes you to dig deeper.
Pam that sounds amazing! Please keep me informed about that vision! Before I close here I was wondering if there is anything you want to say about the Touch A Life Foundation.
Pam: Of course! We are currently very excited about a building project. There are so many needs always. I hope everyone will take a moment to check out the Touch a Life Foundation website. Every donation, helps a child.
Johannes, who was rescued off Lake Volta by Touch A Life in August 2009.
Pam thank you so much for talking with me and sharing more about your book Jantsen’s Gift and what you do to help children in extreme impoverish conditions. Your book really spoke to me and I believe it will do the same for others as well.
This giveaway is now closed
Book Journey 